BJP team to visit Tripura to study situation: Assam Minister

Agartala, Nov 2 (IANS) A BJP parliamentary team will visit Tripura on November 10 to get a feedback on the situation in the Left-ruled state, Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday.

“The team will gather feedback on the situation prevailing in Tripura and raised the matter in Parliament’s winter session,” Sarma told the media here.

“There is lawlessness in Tripura. CPI-M cadres are attacking BJP leaders and workers almost every day and police remain inactive on the government directions,” the BJP leader claimed.

He said the Bharatiya Janata Party wanted a CBI probe into the murder of Tripura’s television journalist Shantanu Bhowmik on September 20 but the government had set up a Special Investigation Team which he claimed was a ‘B’ team of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist.

Sarma, convener of the BJP-led anti-Congress North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), said BJP President Amit Shah will visit Tripura in December to boost the party’s campaign ahead of assembly elections in February 2018.

He said over 60,000 posts were lying vacant in Tripura government departments while lakhs of unemployed educated youths were seeking jobs.

He said the six erstwhile Trinamool Congress MLAs who joined the BJP on August 7 would act as BJP MLAs in the assembly session beginning November 13 and that veteran tribal leader Diba Chandra Hrangkhwal had been chosen the party leader in the assembly.

The Minister said the BJP had formulated a strategy to avoid splitting anti-Left votes to ensure the defeat of the Left Front in Tripura in Assembly polls.

“Many problems, including the demand for a separate state by tribals, will be resolved automatically if the BJP came to power in Tripura as we demonstrated in Manipur,” Sarma said.

The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura has been demanding the new state which it wants to be carved out of areas falling under Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council.